


Where I'm Meant To Go

by brookemopolitan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Schmoop, The Disneyland Paris proposal that nobody asked for and yet I delivered, The Happiest Place On Earth, cuteness, imagines that all of civil war will eventually be happily resolved, written while travelling edited while jet lagged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookemopolitan/pseuds/brookemopolitan
Summary: Steve has always wanted to see Paris and Disneyland is Darcy's favourite place in the world.(Note: I did accidentally double post this- one copy of this fic was deleted. Not because of comments but because one had to go!)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started this work whilst waiting for the fireworks at Disneyland Paris. Delightfully unbetaed and edited by myself when jet lagged. Do be kind. Title taken from I See The Light from the Tangled Soundtrack (because Tangled is most excellent)
> 
>  

Darcy was getting real sick of being pulled out of bed at all hours of the night because of a phone call from Sam, telling her that Steve had gotten injured, again. She was especially sick of it because by the time she got there, he was all but healed up, and she'd flown halfway around the damn world in one of new!SHIELD's helicarriers (and not one of the nice ones, retrofitted for human life- one of the freezing, about to go into freaking battle ones) for a sheepish grin and a promise not to let himself get so hurt so badly next time- a promise they both knew he wouldn't keep. Sometimes she really hated his rapid healing abilities- he was 99 percent healed by the time she arrived, and punching him for being so stupid usually hurt Darcy way more than it hurt him. 

This time, when she found out she needed on a helicarrier to travel to a field hospital two hours out of Bratislava, she decided it was going to be different. She grabbed the bag of essentials she kept packed for these trips around the universe, but instead of hustling out the door, she strode to the closet she and Steve shared, rifling through and grabbing items at random instead. She glared at the SHIELD agent who had been sent to collect her- it was 3am and she was in no mood for talking. She walked onto the helicarrier and strapped in. It was going to be a long fourteen hours, and she was determined to stew in her anger for at least half of them. 

***  
Sam was waiting for her at the landing strip, the way that he always did. "It's the worst one yet," he announced by way of greeting. "Three through and throughs to the shoulder and knife wounds to the abdomen." He paused, wondering if he should elaborate. 

"Don't you dare lie to me, Sam," Darcy hissed. She knew he was trying to spare her the gruesome details, but she would not be treated with kid gloves. 

"I had to hold what I think was his lower intestine in place until medevac came." 

Darcy choked back the vomit that was threatening to make its presence known. "I am actually going to kill him," she sighed. "Goddamnit, why can't he quit while he's ahead?" 

She knew she must have seemed like she was about to lose it, because Sam pulled her into a brotherly hug. "He's been asking for you," he told her. "He was unconscious from the pain for hours, but from the second he could talk, all he's wanted is you." 

Darcy blinked back tears, and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the fact that Steve was probably going to look like hamburger meat. "Lead the way, then." 

*** 

The smell of hospital make her stomach roil. The white paint on the wall was flaking slightly, and that made Darcy wonder how often this place even got used. No matter how many times Steve wound up in one of these field hospitals, terror still planted itself deep in Darcy's stomach as she walked through the halls, and she was constantly petrified that this would be the last time she'd see him. Finding the door unlocked, she leaned against the door frame, taking a moment to observe him, lying motionless in a hospital bed. 

"Hey Doll, you made it," Steve greeted her, his voice weak, but clearly aiming for nonchalance. 

"Let the record state that the fact that you can't have painkillers because you metabolise them too fast is the only reason I'm not kicking your ass right now." 

Steve attempted to sit up, but when the pain blinded him, he was forced to lay back with a groan. "I didn't mean for it to get so out of hand," he muttered. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry."

"You always are," she responded. "How many times do we have to do this?" She knew exactly why he was doing it, but she knew he'd never put words to the fact that he was trying to singlehandedly right all of Bucky's wrongs. 

"Until the job is done."

Oh god, she almost hated herself for falling in love with a martyr with a God complex. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and truly believed that it was his fault it was there in the first place. She came and sat at his side, the plastic chair scraping slightly against the floor, and laced her fingers with his, noting violet bruises across his knuckles and at least one finger that had been shoved back into the joint in the field. Bruce had once surmised that the serum that transformed him into Captain America worked like a triage. It healed his worst injuries first, leaving minor wounds like black eyes and cracked fingers until after his innards had knitted themselves back together. She leaned forward and placed a kiss on the palm of his hand; one of the only places of his body that didn't look like it had been through a meat grinder. "Steve, I can't keep doing this.”

Pain be damned, he wrenched himself up into a sitting position. "So you came all this way to give me a Dear John?"

"Lie back down before you rip a kidney open or something," Darcy ordered, her hands on his shoulders nudging him back into the prone position he'd been in before she entered the room. She fluffed his pillows and kissed the tip of his nose. "No dumbass, I did not haul my butt out of bed at 3am to come halfway around the world so I could dump you," she reassured him. “I'm sorry to say it, but you're stuck with me for good.”

"Good," Steve sighed, relaxing visibly into the pillows. His eyes slipped closed as Darcy started to toy with his hair, carefully avoiding a cut along his temple. 

"Steve, I can't keep live being constantly terrified that I'm going to get a call saying that you've pushed too far and now you're not coming home. It scares me too much. We’re supposed to be building a life together and I feel like it's going to come crashing down around me at any moment.” She paused, chewing her lip as she racked her sleep deprived brain for the right words. "I won't ask you to be less than you are, but God, I need you stop being so damn reckless as you save the world." 

He wasn't going to pretend that he could stop altogether. He knew he wasn't capable of that, and he wasn't going to insult her by not telling her the truth. "I'll try," he answered her truthfully. 

She knew it was the best she would get for the moment. "That's all I can ask, I guess." 

"I love you, Darcy. You know that, right?" 

Despite the absolute horror of the situation, despite the fact that he looked like death warmed up, and the fact that Jane was going to kill her for disappearing, again; a smile crept across her face. "Yeah babe," she answered, "I definitely know that." 

He let out a grunt of pain as he braced his muscles and shuffled over so that he lay to one side of the bed. 

"What are you doing? I feel like the doctor definitely said you're supposed to stay still right now!" 

"Doc also said I'll heal up faster with my girl next to me," Steve answered her, tugging on her hand. 

"I’m going to have to call bullshit on that one," Darcy answered, kicking off her uggs regardless. She knew it was probably a terrible idea, but she wanted to be close to him. She wanted to feel the steady rhythm of his breath and curl into his warmth and remind herself that he was alive and safe next to her. 

"Darcy, would I ever lie to you?" He asked her, his eyes closing as she climbed onto the bed next to him. 

She rested her head on the pillow, breathing in the smell of him that was still present under the hospital disinfectant. Their world was so much more complex than yes and no. There was national security and clearance levels and alien freaking invasions to consider. They both knew that, and it was foolish to pretend that could never be a factor in their relationship. Very early on, they'd promised each other that the only way they'd ever be untruthful was if there was no other option. "Only if you absolutely had to," she answered. It probably seemed twisted, but it brought her comfort. They were still as rock solid as they ever were, and they would continue to be okay. 

*** 

He'd taken two days to fully heal to the point where doctors were willing to let him leave the hospital. He'd been pushing the limits after 10 hours, but Darcy was privately grateful that he'd been ordered to slow down. 

It was time to let him in on her plan. 

"Darcy, it's a field hospital, not a fashion show. What's with the kitchen sink you brought?" Steve asked, eyeing Darcy's massive suitcase as she freshened up in the bathroom. 

"Oh, that's because we're not going back to New York," Darcy answered him after she spat toothpaste into the sink. 

"Come again?" 

She took her time rinsing her mouth and replacing the travel cap on her toothbrush. "You heard me," she said. "We're not going back to New York. At least, not right away. We are taking a vacation." She knew it was a foreign concept to him. Pre serum, a vacation was just financially out of reach, and once he'd been suped up, he was literally in a war zone. She supposed that he had technically taken a 70 year vacation when he'd been in the ice, but she knew from the second he'd found himself in the 21st century, he hadn't stopped. He'd pushed harder and faster and she knew he was rapidly reaching the point where he'd push himself until he burnt out or worse. 

"A vacation to where?" He asked. 

She shrugged. "That's up to you," she informed him. "But keep in mind that I didn't exactly pack for all seasons in there so it would be really freakin sweet if you didn't choose like, the Northern Lights." 

He chose not to remind her that it was April, and they probably wouldn't be able to see them. 

She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, leaning against the frame. "It's totally up to you, babe. I don't mind at all." She wasn't going to say out loud how desperately she needed him to be Steve Rogers, not Captain America. She needed more than a few days with her boyfriend and just her boyfriend, not the hero he was on the side. 

"I never got the chance to see Paris," he decided. It was true- by the time he'd convinced the army to let him out into the field, the Führer had taken control of Paris and was flying the flag of the Third Reich from the Eiffel Tower. He'd only ever seen the surrounding French countryside. 

Darcy walked out of the bathroom and stood between his legs, linking both her hands with his. "Are you going to draw me like one of your French girls?" She asked him, her hair falling around his face like a curtain as she leaned forward to kiss him. 

"I don't know what you mean by that," Steve responded, his lip brushing against hers as he spoke. "But I can if you want me to." 

***  
They had different vacation styles, it seemed. Darcy was all about taking it slow, sleeping late and wandering through city streets because when you're on vacation, you don't get lost, you go on an adventure. Steve approached vacations with the same military precision that he approached every other part of his life- he spent the 12 and a half hour train trip to Paris with a tablet and a map, planning out each thing he wanted to do and figuring out an itinerary for each day. 

They were a walking contradiction, but they worked nonetheless.

In the end, they found a compromise. Steve went running in the morning while Darcy slept. She indulged his methodical plans for how to see every single artwork in the Louvre and the Musée D’Orsey, holding his hand and not wandering off as would have been her habit, easily distracted by something shiny. In turn, he trailed after her as she wandered through the streets of Les Marais and obligingly took photos of her as she waltzed through the Gardens of Versailles, giggling about the fact that she couldn't believe that it used to be someone’s home! 

Steve felt lighter than he had in months. Darcy had been totally right, as usual. From the second that Tony had handed him back the shield, he'd barely put it down. He was actually happy, and he wasn't going to turn his back on that feeling. Each morning, no matter which direction he ran from the hotel, he'd been running past the same little store on Rue de Petit Pont. Running past that place each day gave him the answer to a question that had been on his mind for months. It was damn well time he acted on it. 

***  
“Sweetheart, you need to wake up,” Steve whispered, his lips brushing against her cheek as he stroked his fingers up and down her spine to rouse her. 

Darcy let out a pitiful whimper. “It's still early!” 

“I know Doll, but I've got a surprise for you,” he cajoled her, starting to ease the blankets down her body. “And you can nap on the way.”

Darcy pouted. “Is there coffee?” She asked, her question punctuated by an enormous yawn. 

Steve was many things, but a fool was not one of them. “Of course there is,” he answered her. There was no way he would have risked Darcy’s wrath at being awoken early without caffeine to appease her. “I also got those pastries you like.”

Darcy rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and forced herself to stand. “How do I dress for this surprise?” She asked him

He considered the question. “Comfortable shoes?”

***

Darcy had still been ingesting coffee when Steve told her that she had to keep her headphones in her ear for the entire train journey, so she hadn't asked questions. But when he asked her to tie the scarf she had bought three days prior over her eyes before they got off the train, she hadn't been impressed. She's been ready to protest, but the look he'd given her with those big blue eyes of his had halted her complaints instantly. Instead, she allowed him to steer her through a train station, his warm hands on her shoulders as he whispered directions into the ear he'd plucked the speaker bud out of. 

He tugged out the headphone that still dangled from her left ear, standing with his torso pressed against her back. “You ready for me to take this blindfold off?” He asked her, pressing a kiss against the crown of her head. 

“God yes,” she answered. She hated not being able to see what was ahead of her (the curse of near sightedness) and despite the fact that she trusted Steve implicitly, her skin had been crawling. 

He carefully removed the scarf from her eyes, trying not to tangle her hair, a laugh rumbling through his chest as she squealed. 

“YOU BROUGHT ME TO DISNEYLAND?!” She turned in his arms, launching herself at his shoulders and kissing whatever patch of skin on his face she could get her skin near. 

His arms wrapped firmly around her waist, lifting her off the ground as he returned her embrace. “You forgive me for the blindfold, then?”

She kissed his lips firmly, totally aware they were getting glares from snooty mothers, but too excited to care. “Only if you wear mouse ears.”

He left out a faux pained sigh. “For you Doll, I'll wear the mouse ears.”

She couldn't get the grin off her face. “Okay, you gotta put me down, then,” she ordered. “We need to get fast passes!”

****  
It was funny, Steve mused, how Darcy changed once she got into a Disneyland park. She'd gotten hyper organized, determining the way that they'd move through the parks with the aid of an app on her phone. She'd insisted that being organized was the only way to enjoy Disney, otherwise you spent the day waiting on lines. When they'd first crossed the line between friends who occasionally made out with each other to actual couple, Darcy had casually mentioned that her parents took her and her brothers to Disney World every year, and it was her favourite place in the entire world, because you weren't allowed to bring your troubles into the park; the only thing that you were allowed to feel was joy. He knew how badly she'd been hurting over his asshattery as Cap, and he was desperate to try and start making it up to her. She was it for him, and he refused to lose her over settling someone else’s debts. 

Her childlike enthusiasm was infectious. He decided not to stress about the box burning a hole in his pocket, and just enjoy Darcy dragging him from ride to ride, documenting the day with the smartphone that was constantly in her hand. 

“We have to ask about where the best place to see the fireworks is,” Darcy told Steve as she balanced a hotdog in one hand and an enormous serving of cotton candy in the other. “They're my favourite thing at Disney.”

She'd said that a lot throughout the day, but Steve was willing to indulge her. Truthfully, he'd heard about the fireworks already, and they'd given him a few ideas. He also knew that when Darcy said they needed to find something out, it was he that would be doing the asking. She spoke enough French to order a coffee, and though his language choices were seventy years out of date, he was the far more fluent speaker of the two of them. “Eat your hotdog,” he told her. “I'll go ask.”

He felt a tiny tingle of nerves as he approached the cast member. “Hi,” he greeted her in French. “Please keep this quiet. I want to propose to my girlfriend before the fireworks tonight. Where’s the best place for me to do that?”

A huge grin spread over the cast mate’s face. “Oh, that's so romantic!” She cooed. “You absolutely want to be in front of the castle, but not the part where we rope off. If you're in the gardens on the other side of the path, you’ll get a much better view of the fireworks and projections,” she told him, “You’ll want to be there about an hour beforehand so there's not so many people around and I'll make sure that someone from the park is there with a camera, so you can have photos with the castle in the background.” 

The tickle of nervousness in his stomach was starting to morph and feel like excitement. “That sounds perfect. I appreciate your help.” 

The cast member smiled serenely. “Good luck tonight and have a magical day!” 

He walked back over to Darcy, masking his face to hide any sign of collusion with the staff of Disneyland. The whole thing would be ruined if Darcy suspected a thing. “What did she say?”  
Darcy asked. 

Steve pointed to the area that had been suggested. “She said that would be the best spot to actually see everything,” he informed her, tearing off a piece of her cotton candy before she could protest. 

“Ooh, that looks like it'll fill up fast,” Darcy surmised, inspecting the area. “We should be there at least an hour beforehand. I will elbow small children if I have to for prime viewing space.” 

Steve had been on the receiving end of one of Darcy’s elbow more than once. “Doll, you really don't need to elbow anyone,” he placated her. “We can get there as early as you want.” 

She wrinkled her nose affectionately before rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I like it when you're this agreeable.” 

He chuckled. They'd been known to have some colorful arguments, but he kinda loved that about her. He'd spent far too many years surrounded by people who just said “yes Cap” to whatever  
he said, and he relished the fact that she wasn't afraid to tell him when he was being an asshole. “I like it when you're easy to agree with,” he sassed her. 

She glared at him. “Oooohhhh, you're testing me,” she said, raising an eyebrow in mock outrage. “Just, remember this moment.” 

She had been spending way too much time with Pepper. He was also mostly sure she was messing with him. Either way, he was sure she would find some way to sass him back at some point in the near future. Not so secretly, the fact that Darcy oozed gumption from every pore was Steve’s favourite thing about her. She was so unapologetically herself, and completely unafraid of calling people on their bullshit- something Steve was often in desperate need of. This vacation was just another example of that; Darcy knew him, sometimes better than he knew himself. 

For lack of anything to say in response to her sass, he slipped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. “What's next on the agenda?” 

Darcy pondered the question. “Well, first I'm going to kiss you for long enough that those moms over there get scandalised,” she told him. She loved the way that he would blush to the roots of his hair whenever she displayed too much affection when they were out of the house, muttering embarrassedly that some things were private. Darcy was sure that it was a leftover from his 1940s sensibilities, and naturally, took great delight in getting him just a little hot and bothered and tiny bit less Captainy in public. 

He huffed out a laugh. He'd learned to go with it, because his protests only egged her on. She’d once given a dramatic retelling of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 in a cafe to prove her point. She was almost impossible to embarrass and was just as quick to poke fun at herself as she was at others. “And then?” He asked.

She grinned. “Then I get my photo taken with Daisy Duck.”

***  
True to her word, Darcy had returned them to the forecourt of the castle exactly an hour before the fireworks began. Her glare at anybody taller than her attempting to stand in front of her was truly vicious. 

That bundle of excited nervousness was back in full force in Steve’s stomach. He was sure his hands were shaking. He spotted the cast member from earlier, who was now brandishing an enormous camera. It was time. 

“Doll, do you want some photos in front of the castle?” He asked her. It was an innocent enough question- she'd wanted photos everywhere else. 

“Sure,” she answered. “The sunset is really pretty tonight.”

Steve approached that cast member, handing her his phone with a wink. Stepping back to Darcy, he smiled obligingly as she posed. 

“Do you remember when we first met?” He asked her. 

“When you were all ‘grrr, I'm Captain America, the very first avenger’? Because yeah,” she answered. 

“You were such a breath of fresh air. You were the only person who treated me like Steve, the guy who had just had his world turned upside down, not like just a hero for hire. I don't think I ever told you how grateful I was for that,” he murmured. Despite the fact that they were in an incredibly public place, he was sure to keep his voice low just in case some stranger whipped out their camera phone to record his proposal and sold it to TMZ. 

“I had lost all sense of who I could be. I felt like I was trapped in the dark with no way out. Then you came breezing into my life like sunshine and I could finally see again. You were the first person to show me I could have a life after I felt like mine had ended. That I could be Steve in the twenty first century, not just Captain Rogers,” he paused, reaching into his pocket to pull out the ring he'd bought at that same jewellery store he'd run past each morning since he'd arrived in Paris. “Doll, I can't see my life without you in it,” he dropped to one knee, opening the box, grinning when he saw Darcy’s jaw drop. “I'm asking you to make me an honest man,” he heard her giggle, and he felt his own laugh slip out as he composed himself, worried he may actually start crying before he'd actually asked the question. “Darcy Anne Lewis, will you do me the honour of marrying me?” 

Darcy had stopped paying attention to the cameras around them, and she barely registered that there was anybody else around other than Steve. Deep down in her soul she knew he'd planned this whole day in order to propose, and she loved him all the more for his careful attention to detail. “Yes,” she answered, realizing she hadn't actually said anything, and was staring at him like a guppy, distracted by the gorgeous ring he had presented to her. “As if there is any other answer.” 

Her hand was shaking as she let him slip the ring on her finger, and her hands cupped his face, thumbs brushing the few tears that had leaked into his cheeks. “I’m going to kiss you now,” she warned him. 

“You’d better,” he challenged her. He'd once been part of a traveling show- he could do dramatic when the occasion called for it. He scooped Darcy into his arms, and when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him, he twisted her into a dramatic dip, the crowd that had formed around them cheering loudly. 

Darcy looked up at him, her eyes shining behind her glasses. “I am so glad we came to Paris,” she told him. 

He grinned, carefully twisting them so they were both standing upright. “Me too,” he answered. 

An announcement came over the loudspeaker system in French. “You ready for the fireworks?” He questioned, tugging her back towards the spot she'd initially wanted to stand, arms circling her from behind. 

“I forgot they were happening,” Darcy answered truthfully, looking down at the ring on her hand. It wasn't a traditional diamond setting- but she'd never cared about things like that. The peach coloured stone set in Art Deco fashioned rose gold was far more her style anyway.

“Are you sure it fits? I can get it resized if it needs to be.”

“This is perfect,” she murmured to him. “I love it.” She kissed the underside of his jaw. “And you're never taking it off my hand.” 

“I like the sound of that.” 

Darcy grinned. “You really are stuck with me now, babe. To infinity and beyond.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear your thoughts and/or fic prompts for these lovelies.


End file.
